Gambling writers, especially writers about the slot machines such as me, often overlook the very people who play the machines. We focus on the new machines, good strategies, and machine-selection principles; also the RNG, money management or the history of the machines, among other things. In fact, the slot players, the meat and potatoes of the casinos (or should I say, "Caviar"? since the slot player is the premier casino player in today’s Temples of Chance) have a host of things to tell us and memories of their play to share with us.

So I’ve decided to ask slot players for some of their memories and for some of their advice as well.

Sandra M. Dubowski has been playing slots in Vegas and then in Atlantic City since the early 1960s and she has seen many changes. "All I used to want in the old days when I was young was just to win any kind of money. I’d take any win. Now I dream of hitting it big to send my great grandchildren, yes I have those, to college" she laughed. "I want them to go to good colleges and not be strapped for money. I’ve never really come close to that. My biggest win was about twenty-four hundred dollars. I spent it in about two weeks!"

Mary Livingston of New Jersey wouldn’t give her age, "I’m old enough to know better than to think I will win on the slots in the long run because I am in the long run and boy are those slots rough. My best day I won twelve thousand dollars in three different Atlantic City casinos. I kept hitting those intermediate jackpots and I never was down from the very first spin, which I won. I never had another day like that where I was just so lucky. I’ve hit some big ones, like on the Blazing Sevens, but I never had a day where I just kept winning. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to keep me ahead for my slot playing career."

"All I ever wanted when you could play for real coins was to get a bigger bucket," states Janice Fabricant, originally from Brooklyn, now living in Tennessee. "Remember how the buckets in the old days came in all these different dimensions? Well I was a nickel player and my dream was to win enough to go up to quarters then to dollars and maybe even beyond that. I wanted to fill up the biggest buckets the casinos had. That was my dream. I did become a quarter player when my now deceased husband and I started to make good money in business. Now I just play nickels again. I no longer want a bigger bucket."

"You want advice about slot machines?" laughed Barney Greenburg, a retired accountant, from Chicago. "Because I have no advice. I just play them for fun and I never expect anything. I know I can’t beat them but I have had some really great days. I have won ten thousand a couple of times and once I had a day where I won about twenty thousand. That really sounds good but I’ve had so many losing trips that even those big wins can’t throw me over the top. So my advice is to make sure you aren’t playing with money you need for other things and just enjoy yourself. Get out of your head that you are going to make enough to live the life of your dreams. It isn’t going to happen."

"My girlfriend Rosie and I used to play as a team," said Olivia LaRusso of New Jersey, a retired school teacher. "We would pool an equal amount of money and hit the machines. If we won we shared the win and if we lost we shared the loss. It was very exciting in those days. We had some great wins too. One time both Rosie and I had great days, both of us winning over five figures. We went home and showed our husbands all those hundred-dollar bills." She smiled, "My husband said that he loved me even more now that I am rich. He was a funny, lovely guy. Rosie was a great friend too. I miss them both."

If you go back through any issues of Jackpot check out the pictures of all those players who have won those big jackpots, some in the thousands, some in the hundreds of thousands and some few in the millions. Look at their faces closely because that giant check might become the biggest memory of their slot-playing lives. Each picture is of someone, perhaps just like you, having fun and enjoying the lightning strike of excellent fortune.

Frank Scoblete, #1 best-selling gaming author, is director of Golden Touch advantage-play seminars in dice-control and blackjack. Websites: www.goldentouchcraps.com and www.scoblete.com. Recent books: The Virgin Kiss!, Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution! and Golden Touch Blackjack Revolution! Join Frank at The World Casino Championships in August of 2009 in fabulous Las Vegas. Go to: http://www.goldentouchcraps.com/wcc_2009.shtml for more information. To order Frank's products or free brochure, call 1-800-944-0406.